Monday, May 01, 2006

The LA Times has an article about the strip-club/hip-hop culture in Atlanta. Here's a highlight:

"Tax Holloway is tall and slim, and he carries himself with an easy elegance. The website of his fledgling record label describes him as having a 'strong, silent pimp-like demeanor,' and he cut a cool, unflappable figure amid the Magic City bacchanal. His attire was gangsta casual: backward ball cap, blue Dickies work jacket and matching work pants that pooled around a pair of white alligator-skin Nikes.

Around him were hundreds of patrons who had come to be part of Magic Monday. It is a storied weekly event: Rappers drop 'Magic Monday' in lyrics as a shorthand for the kind of party most people only see in videos. At 2 a.m., five dancers shimmied on an H-shaped stage in the middle of the room, and the rest worked the floor, offering to work at closer quarters for the big tippers. Heads swayed and bobbed to a seamless string of regional hits, and the deejay goaded the mostly male, mostly black crowd to new heights of generosity:

'Where the paper at?" he barked. "Come on, let's do this for real!'

The vegetal tang of marijuana floated in the air. From time to time, patrons flung plumes of cash toward the rafters, letting the dollar bills flutter where they may — a ritual known as "making it rain." It began as a flashy way for big-timers to tip the dancers, but it has evolved into a thing unto itself — a raw display of wealth and power. In Atlanta, the presence of two or three major rap stars in one club can lead to a rainmaking competition, and leave thousands of dollars on the floor."